Internal Armed Conflicts, Humanitarian Laws and the Curious Transformation of Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala by Kalana Senaratne on Groundviews flagged a number of pertinent questioning arising from the media reportage of Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recently. On our Facebook page as well as through numerous emails sent to the […]

Eyebrows were raised when I included the word deffa on the mirisgala website under “new entries”. And it’s true that it is stretching the point to claim that it qualifies as standard Sri Lankan English. But perhaps it also gives us an insight into the future of SLE. Deffa (or defa) is a word that […]

Photo courtesy Global Zero Numerous reports suggest that Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala had some interesting things to say when he appeared before the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recently; about aspects relating to the interference of certain States in the internal affairs of other States; about the R2P concept; about the Sri Lankan Armed Forces […]

On our way to the first scheduled hearing of Northern Muslims who were expelled by the LTTE in 1990, we spotted a group of men working hard out in the open, under the midday sun, and we stopped to have a conversation with them. Eight days earlier they had made their way from Puttalam to […]

Interview III – Tissa Jayathilaka from Young Asia Television on Vimeo. In this interview, Tissa Jayatilaka speaks about the Ceylon of his childhood and the experience of being part of the last batch of students enrolled at the University of Ceylon. Tissa also talks about the tumultuous period during the 1970s, the roots of the […]

Professor Michael Roberts, in a letter to the editor of The Island, has raised a matter of moral philosophy with regard to the controversy over Suraj Randiv’s deliberate no ball at Dambulla this week in an attempt to denude Virender Sehwag of his century, and the role of Tillekeratne Dilshan in it. Which is worse, […]

The late Ray Wijewardene in conversation with Nalaka Gunawardene Sri Lanka 2048 panel on Living with Climate Change – Ray Wijewardene is second from right [Authors note: Dr Philip Revatha (Ray) Wijewardene, who passed away on August 18 aged 86, spent a lifetime being unpigeonholeable â€“ which won him many admirers and a few detractors. […]

Prof. Sumanasiri Liyanage, who hasÂ written to Groundviews regularly, teaches political economy at the University of Peradeniya, is a well-known political analyst, columnist and on the Board of the South Asia Peace Institute (SAPI). We began our short conversation with the crisis facing the main opposition party in Sri Lanka, the United National Party, flagging serious […]

Image courtesy Transcurrents Introduction The current crisis in the UNP has thrown its grassroots supporters into a sense of hopelessness and disappointment about the future of the party. No political party can afford to let itself disintegrate and disappear from the political stage. If the present crisis is not resolved, it leaves behind a power […]

We last featured Rohan Edrisinha in February, just after the Presidential election on 26th January. Rohan, who lectures at the Law Faculty, University of Colombo and also a Director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, at the time flagged serious concerns over the implementation of the 13th and 17th Amendments, as well as the tragic […]

[Editors note: We reproduce below two open letters sent to the Editors of the Daily Mirror and Daily Mirror online respectively. The letters flag significant concerns over a marked lack of professionalism and violation of established media ethics by both the online and print versions of the newspaper. The letters are published for any responses […]

In June 2010 the Minister for Resettlement, Milroy Fernando stated that there were 60,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sri Lanka and that the Government would resettle them by August 2010. With some 30,000 IDPs remaining in Menik Farm at the end of July it would not be impossible for the Government to close the […]

The story about Minister Mervyn Silva tying a Samurdhi Officer to a tree as punishment for not participating in a dengue prevention programme in the Kelaniya district was bad enough. The statement made by the UPFA General Secretary, Susil Premajayantha that the party or the government is not responsible for the actions of Minister Mervyn […]

Photo courtesy the Daily Mirror’s febrile imagination On the 29th of July 2010 I read a strange and badly written editorial that appeared in the Daily Mirror newspaper. To put it mildly, the editorial was a diatribe against the so-called recent trend of ‘persuading’ citizens to become gay. It demonstrated an appalling lack of good […]

Enough conceptual theories are produced and articulated on the need and urgency of the political power sharing in Sri Lanka. Avoiding the torturous repetition and gauging the current diminishing appreciation for any theoretical discourse or appetite for challenging conceptual explanations, we suggest the following five points abstract as a summary of recommendation for a new […]

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Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka...Free media at it's very best!"

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